Cases rising in Mumbai as the country's hot spot...How much is it costing us to live in this hotel?...

This was our favorite videos we'd made in Africa. Kruger National Park requested to

use this on their site, to which we agreed at no cost to them.

Note: To all of our readers visiting our site via a smartphone, please click the "View web version" tab under the word, "Home" at the bottom of the page to access the web version enabling you to access all of our archives on the right side of the page. We'll be updating our site in a few months, making these extra steps unnecessary. Thank you.Today's photos are from May 20, 2018, from Chobe National Park in Botswana. Please click herefor more details.

Albert our guide in Chobe National Park and on the Chobe River had pulled the safari vehicle close to the river so we could easily take photos of the elephants.

It's all over the news. Cases and deaths from Covid-19 are increasing rapidly, particularly in the state of Maharashtra, where we are located, mainly due to cases increasing in Mumbai.

Three baby elephants were off at a distance and the moms were angry they'd wandered off. They started calling for them and they came running. This happened so quickly we had no time to react and take a video. When the babies returned it appeared the moms were scolding them as they kicked up sand while bellowing.

Local news as of May 18th from this site:Coronavirus Lockdown Extension 4.0 Guidelines News (State Wise): With nearly 90,000 cases, the number of COVID-19 patients in India is growing rapidly. India has already overtaken China in terms of the number of people affected by the Coronavirus. The total number of positive cases in the country is now at 90,927, including 53,946 active cases, 34,109 cured/discharged/migrated cases, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said today. The death toll stands at 2,872. India has been under lockdown since March 25. The Modi government has extended the lockdown further till May 31 and released Lockdown 4.0 Guidelines today. The delineation of red, green, and orange zones will be decided by the respective State/Union Territory governments, after taking into consideration the parameters shared by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Home Ministry said."Approximately, about one-third of the nation's cases have been in Maharashtra, particularly in Mumbai. See below for stats from this site:

They were so close to us we didn't need to use any zoom on the camera.

Maharashtra confirmed around 33,000 cases of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) as of May 18, 2020, with 1,198 fatalities and 7,688 recoveries. India reported around 96,000 cases, including this state that same day. The country went into lockdown on March 25, the largest in the world, restricting 1.3 billion people and extended until May 3, 2020. The lockdown had been further extended for another two weeks starting from May 4, 2020 (now until May 31). As per the new guidelines, the country was divided into red, orange, and green zones. Red zones are designated as the hot spots and will not see any relaxations in comparison to the areas considered less prone to the spread of the virus."

A few stragglers who'd been grazing followed suit.

These stats don't bode well for our hopes of the airport opening for international travel anytime soon. And, once it does open, the activity and crowds at the airport could be in outrageous numbers. In any case, it will be a watch and see the scenario for us.

One baby insisted on suckling after all of the action.

Most likely we won't leave until: a). Flights are available for our next destination and, b). Crowds at the airport have diminished.

This may result in our staying in this hotel for an extra week or more after the airport reopens for international travel.

Things started to settle down.

On another note, with great difficulty, we finally were able to book extra nights at this hotel from today until July 1, 2020. Apparently, Hotels.com was having some type of booking issue and we weren't able to book more than eight nights in a row.

This prevented us from taking full advantage of the double rewards points when only one booking per person would allow the double points. At this point, we've prepaid and booked nights in both of our names until July 1, 2020.

Finally, they decided to wander off.

Who knows? Maybe by then, we'll be able to leave. If we leave earlier than July 1st, the hotel won't charge us for the nights we haven't used and will credit us accordingly. This gives us peace of mind.

Today, when the cleaners arrived, we headed downstairs for the first time in many days to pay our bill for the past 28 nights plus the dinners, which we hadn't prepaid and was due today. Our bill for 28 nights plus meals was INR 260713, USD $3445.40 which averages at INR 9307, US $123 per night including dinner and taxes.

The worry exhibited by the moms was heartwarming to witness. We were grateful to have witnessed such an event.

We're appreciative and fortunate for this reasonable cost per day. It could have been twice as much in another hotel. It would have been tough to pay a greater sum when this isn't about "having a good experience" as we've had when staying in hotels in the past while traveling. This is hardly a "fun" time.

This is all so weird, isn't it? We never imagined we'd be living in a hotel for three months or more, unable to go outdoors or enjoy any of the facilities, have a drink or a glass of wine, dine in a restaurant, while handwashing all of our clothes in the shower.

One baby insisted on suckling after all of the action.

Nor did we ever anticipate we'd be wearing face masks each time we left our room while it's being cleaned, to walk the corridors or stop by the reception desk.

Many times, in our 2840 posts (as of today) we mentioned the peculiarity of our lives of long-term world travel without a place to call home, no storage, and only a few possessions in our bags. But, never once did we consider this added layer of peculiarity.

Another calf suckling.

These are indeed strange and frightening times, none of us ever anticipated would transpire during our lifetimes. In years to come, if and when this is ever over, we'll look back and shake our heads in astonishment as to how we managed to come out on the other side.

Keep the faith, dear readers. It's all we have to hang onto during these times.

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Photo from one year ago today, May 20, 2019:

Appealing view of clouds reflecting into the body of water in Connemara, Ireland. For more photos please click here.